[gernb]

So they're the ones I need to punch in the face for "pull-to-refresh"? (jk)

Actually though, I absolutely hate that Chrome iOS has pull-to-refresh. I've never in my life wanted to refresh a page by pulling and instead what happens is once or twice a month I'm filling out a form or typing a post and I need to scroll up. I do it instinctively, chrome refreshes, I lose everything I just typed. Thanks Chrome

[Me1000]

Well, to be fair, pull to refresh is an adaptation of the original interaction.

It was originally "pull to load newer posts". Remember that a twitter timeline would have the newest posts at the top and the older posts below it. So when a user would return to the app, they would keep scrolling up until they reached the top. Then if they kept scrolling triggering the iOS rubber-banding behavior, it would load newer posts. Then the newer posts would be rendered above where you were in the list.

Refreshing the whole page wasn't the intended purpose.

[amatecha]

Yeah, pull-to-refresh doesn't make sense on a web browser at all IMO. Its obvious, specific application is "refreshing a vertical list of entries, typically populated via a network request". This action doesn't map well to "loading a page of content".

One fundamental point of the interaction is that you're already scrolling to the top of the list because you're viewing a reverse-chronologically-sorted list of network-driven content. If, after hitting the top of the list, you keep trying to scroll up, you're already suggesting to the software that you want to see more. On a website, this implication doesn't apply. I'm just trying to get to the top of the page.

[pornel]

What's the point of using Chrome on iOS if it is forced by Apple to be just a thin skin on top of Safari, and you don't even like the UI?

BTW, the Firefox-flavored Safari skin has a regular refresh button.

[kitsunesoba]

Generally people use third-party WebKit browsers on iOS for syncing tabs, history, bookmarks, etc.

[madeofpalk]

Probably the main reason why people use any browser is because of the UI and features added on top of the rendering engine.